Thursday, 30 April 2015

As per tradition London Anime Con will be hosting a Fashion show celebrating Japanese fashion this coming July 2015. On Sat 4th July - now called the 'Harajuku Fashion Show' Why? Because it's all about creativity and putting your on twist on fashion trends as people do in Harajuku from standing around or mingling with fellow fashionistas.

What we are looking for:

*Models - styling together there own Japanese Style including: Lolita/punk/gothic/visual kei/fairy kei/roccoco/creepy cute/hime/rave/sweet/classic/kimino/mori/prince/decora/gyaru/yomamba.

*Designers - to showcase their Japanese style or fusion rage of clothing/accessories.

*Makeup Artists/hairstylists - not afraid to try bold looks or soft and natural for mori styles

What you get out of this:

All Models, hair stylists, makeup artists, Designers, will receive a free entry ticket to the event on Saturday 4th July.Since this is an event you will be able to walk around freely and watch other stage events, look at the merchandise, access the bar, watch movies, play games - including the after party.

Models: You will get at least two digital professional photos of you in your outfit for your portfolio and many cat walk photos and from backstage.
Hair stylists/Makeup artists: you get to practice your skills and also obtain photos for your portfolio
Designers: Showcase your pieces on a catwalk

If you are interested, please message me with the information listed below ^_^
Application Form:

Not shortly after the first Monster Hunter Offline event 2015, Angela and Izzy find a new base in the South East for regular meetups hidden in Peckham. Living in that side of the river I can relate to wanting some where local to met up and not threatening over getting the last train and being stranded.

Dan from Nintendo Spot planned the event in conjunction with Mon Hun Offline and and discovered the Venue. The bar itself was located near Peckham Rye station hidden amongst the butchers. As soon as you walked in you were greeted by retro arcade machines. The staff reserved a whole floor for us hunters to get comfy in and get on with some serious missions. We had a mix of 'fresh meat' and seasoned hunters engaging and of course being sociable.

Currently Monster Hunter Offline will be packing up their rations and touring the Uk for lots of meets to get everyone involved !

Sunday, 12 April 2015

On Saturday April 4th 2015 the Marriot Hotel Marble Arch was taken over by the largest amount of Tekken anthusiasts to compete for a pot of £700 and a customised arcade stick. Top ranking players worldwide turned up to the event including: Great Britain, France, America, Korea, Poland, Spain.

Since the days of the original Lionz Den dedicated to Tekken, Liono is back and sponsored by Bandai Namco Entertainment themselves to bring the Tekken hype. With other sponsors such as Bandai Namco Games Madkatz, Sony, 360 gaming.co.uk and Cool Kids Table who donated prizes for the players and raffle including a PS4.

Saturday saw a delay in the tournament due to five copies of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 being stolen, but community members ran out to shops to pick up more copies. All the seeded players amounting over 100 players battle to go up against the best players such as JDCR, Help Me, Kor and Asim. All the players dwindled down to a mere eight to play on Sunday. Games were available on Iiyama and Sony screens . There will also be setups with older Tekken (T1-T5) games for casuals. Food will be available at the venue and there will also be entertainment in the form of performers and comedians.

Devil from Poland against Help Me from Korea (screenshot by Aisha Anime)

The top eight were down to the following countries Korea, GB, France, Poland, France and America. The top three was Korea, GB and Poland and they were all fights to watch! Especially Asim vs JDCR as host Liono was gunning fro his fellow GB player Asim. With all the chanting JDCR and Help Me's determination did not waver. They saw success down to Devil from Poland against Help Me from Korea there were a series of death stares and Devil even provoked trash talk from the silent Help Me with a simple "I Hate you" you knew the battle was very serious then. Every thing was in great banter and fights began and ended with handshakes. With a close battle Help Me won and the finals were JDCR and Help Me both from Korea.

JDCR and Sophie Silva cosplaying as Armour King

With tension mounting on whether JDCR would win the title or would we have to witness more rounds if Help Me conquered his senpai - a very close battle ensued and the cool as cucumber JDCR took the title and prizes for Korea. Making Help Me second and Devil third.

The finals ended around 8pm which meant the after party was to begin with Performances from some diverse rappers, Dippy Magic, you tube sensation D4nny and an after party of Liono dancing !

Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters is a visual novel that follows a group called the Gatekeepers who hold the facade of website of the occult and creepy but are actual mercenaries for hire to exorcise demons. You play the unknowing college student baffled by girls and already deemed a weirdo by the student council president an extreme hottie. When a fellow classmate in a wheelchair asks if you believe in ghosts things begin to unravel.

This game struck me a beautifully presented JRPG but coming from Arc Systems Works I knew there would be more tot his game than meets the eye. You are a generic guy but you enter all your stats at the begging ie name, star sign what club you want to join - I joined Tea because I loathe sports and so should my character but hey that doesn't affect the fact you are now a ghost hunter.

Me and not impressed student president are recruited by the Gatekeepers and Shindo shows us the ropes, since he is confined to his wheelchair he normally contacts us via walkie talkie while we do all the hard grafting. Once at the HQ you use the pc to see requests and pick which ever ones you like these vary in difficulty and maps.

Maps are important as you are introduced to a quirky shop owner who sells us items to help us on missions, the quicker we catch the demons the more bounty we receive. Certain items can be placed on the maps to prevent ghosts entering rooms or push them in a certain direction for us to trap them in a corner.

These items can be household objects like table salt, ghosts cant walk over it and you have more complex traps that push the ghost away from you. But the layout of the room are important as any electricity sockets can move the ghosts around to other rooms which can be frustrating.

You have a certain amount of turns before you fail your mission, it's different for each map. Also you can bump into random demons as well as your primary target, the second you exterminate your mission is over.

You have advantages such as the cat Seecloar she can sense ghosts and also lights up areas at random. She sometimes comes on the map to help. depending on the equipment of your characters as default you have two teams with the EVP gear to sense ghosts nearby so the third team you need to save up money for to get it as you have time constraints and running around in circles is not an option. Shindo from time to time gives clues to where the ghosts are hiding in certain areas or near certain items.

The visual novel aspect is beautifully done, you have seamless cut scenes that morph into an almost 3D dimension feel and you can re watch the sequences in the scrap book at the HQ. Sometimes you are faced with decisions and this is the confusing part, you are given the icons: mouth, ear, hand, nose. I automatically thought mouth was to talk- apparently not my character within the first five minutes of the game tries to snog the student president. Awkward. This probably the only thing that lets the game down no quick tutorial in game or instruction Manuel of how to use the icons. I don't think these decisions really change the game but affect the script but otherwise you follow the story in a linear fashion.

Other things you can get up to in the HQ include mini games if you fancy a break from the ghost hunting and main story. Also when you leave for a mission you get to select tracks to listen to in the car and on the mission. A lot of details has been put into making this game a great experience. i worry about playing it whilst travelling as I can get very immersed and miss my stop.

As a horror fan I really enjoyed the ghost aspect of the game, you get a loose story about each ghost and the art compliments it so well. the level of artistry used to do the movie sequences makes it feel like your part of a movie. Apart from the lack of instructions on how to manovere the emoticons, a sold game with great soundtrack, composed by Nobuo Uematsu famed for Final Fantasy.

Definitely a 4 and a half out of 5 I loved freaking out the girls in this game, makes it more entertaining.

Since it was Easter it seemed apt to have a themed Lolita meet up - Sarah the host had planned the meet up at the lovely state house Geffrye Museum in the heart of London, Shorditch. Lolita's traveled from all over England from the meet including Oxford.

After a relaxed walk around the museum soaking in the Victorian reconstruction of rooms and paintings, everyone popped outside for a picnic lunch. Then A few of the Lolita's went to hide some Easter eggs for an Easter Egg hunt. There were three contests, one for the person who found the most eggs, second for the best Easter themed outfit and lastly best general outfit.

Sofia collected the most eggs at a whooping 25, second was Nat at 23 and since Sofia is Vegan she gave first prize (Easter Egg) to an extremely happy Nat. Best Easter theme outfit went to Sofia who again gave her egg to second place and last was best non theme outfit was a tie between Nat and Natalie so they got an Easter Egg each. We then took the time to get some great photos outside in the picturesque gardens including some martial arts skits.

Everything was rounded off with a quick bus ride to Spittle-fields market for a cream tea at Patisserie Valerie and a look around the market. A lot of people did look and a few asked for photos, it's nice when people come together for fashion. I spoke to Lotte who said it was great to be able to wear Lolita fashion and feel comfortable in a group. I highly recommend your local small meets to introduce yourselves and meet people for the same area and passion for fashion.

Monday, 6 April 2015

Being new to the Monster Hunter community I've attended two events so far at the Capcom HQ being lucky enough to meet the Producer of of the games Ryozo Tsujimoto, series director Kaname Fujioka and a whole bunch of awesome hunters! Here is a group who have formed their own independent Monster Hunter community (with no affiliation with Capcom)

This first meet of 2015 was by Monster Hunter Offline an un official community led by die hard fans. Upon entering the LAN pub Meltdown near Caledonian Road station. I was greeted by enthusiastic leaders Angela and Izzy. They gave me a raffle ticket (to win figures or a homemade hammer from the game made by Izzy!) and two badges designed by themselves and explained the schedule for the day.

Photo taken and edited by Isobel Redsell

I was impressed by the vigor and friendliness by the all the attendees, Angela offered to show me the ropes of the game as I was a noob to Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, we got together a group of noobs led by a few high level hunters to help us level up fast and collect armour. A knight in shining armour called Zack who was level 85 at the time came to speed up our quests and he was given a free drink token for being a helper. I was amazed at the kind gesture and that Zack unknowingly helped out and got a free drink for his kindness.

They also had a representative from Koei there with playable demos of Toukiden for people to try out which is similar to Monster Hunter but you are samurai defeating demons in Edo Japan ( the art is beautiful, definitely worth checking out). People who played the demo were entered into a raffled to win a copy of the full game, I quite enjoyed milling around in the easy quests getting to gripes with the controls and to my astonishment I won the raffle.

Before we knew it a delivery of 10 pizzas or more came to the pub and we were all instructed to dig in and raise our stats this was not expected and honestly we were taken care of amazingly. Considering the majority of hunters had been there from 12-8pm. After dinner we awaited the raffle and it was intense. Who gets to collect some figures or take the gigantic hammer home. With a few draws for the hammer - as a few hunters were unable to transport it home, the third winner Rachel Burns cosplaying in one of the armour sets proudly claimed the hammer. Before the hammer went on a car journey to it's new home a;; the hunters were offered a chance to get photos holding it!

This event is great to introduce new players tot he game and for seasoned hunters to level up and make new guild friends. I will definitely attending again :-) The main focus of this group is to get people into a social space to play together, you can play online but there is no form of communication. Gaming can be solitary so let's make it hella fun in person!

Saturday, 4 April 2015

Me and my school chum Caroline got bored and took photos a while back and I decided to get an Easter themed shot and they turned out great, even though I don't suit the 'cute' fashion trend I made it work SOMEHOW! Check out her cosplay and wedding photos here.

I also collaborated with Cherry Jenkins (who currently has no DA or FB page) and she used her plain line Pokemon drawings for a base to make an Easter design for me: Chancey cosplaying a Rabbit and me looking suspicious because like I said I don't do cute often and I loved the final outcome - I only expected a line drawing she even coloured it in. So i thought I'd share the love and posted it to some important people in my life, followers and new friends.Snail Mail ftw ^_^

If you want to hear the latest gaming, anime, cosplay and convention news follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Thursday, 2 April 2015

Nyu Media announced that TyranoBuilder Visual Novel Studio just released and is out now on Steam for Windows and MacOS, AND is available at a special launch week price of $12.74 (15% discount)! My friends are already playing it and loving! Worth trying out if your a visual novel enthusiast!

Start making your own multi-platform video games right NOW, even if you know nothing about game programming or scripting! TyranoBuilder’s suite of intuitive drag-and-drop tools allows you to create high quality visual novels with speed and ease, and bring your creativity visions to reality!

Take it to the next level with TyranoScript, the powerful and flexible visual novel scripting language included with TyranoBuilder which allows you to customize every aspect of your game. Perfect for beginners, powerful enough for experts.

TyranoBuilder Visual Novel Studio at Steam:http://store.steampowered.com/app/345370/TyranoBuilder will be available from Steam for Windows and MacOS from March 27th, for the one-time price of $14.99.

About Me

I'm a Journalist, would love to work in the Otaku Community 24/7. I interview cosplayers, voice actors, Japanese Directors of Anime/games/movies. Dress kawaii and cosplay frequently, if you see me at an event, come say Hi :D